QBs on the run are a challenge for Bruins

LOS ANGELES – Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez took the most dynamic snap of his football career on second down, buried deep in his own territory at the 8-yard-line. His Cornhuskers were less than 10 minutes into their heavyweight September matchup with UCLA, one of the many teams that passed on the California native in the recruiting process.

Martinez faked to his running back, Ameer Abdullah, who sprinted left, taking a host of Bruin defenders with him. Martinez’s next step, a quick jab to the right, was all he’d need for the Gold and Blue Sea to part. He burst through an opening in the line. Ninety-two yards later, the longest run from scrimmage in Rose Bowl history was his.

Martinez's seamless touchdown run was the read option at its best – a specialty of speedy, heady quarterbacks such as Martinez. When run correctly, against a defense that bites on the fake, it’s an almost unstoppable play, drawing the defense in the opposite direction of the ball carrier and leaving only green grass ahead. It’s no wonder the play, with no concrete, proven way to stop it, has found its way into the playbooks of teams all over the country.

For Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez, who has run spread offenses at Michigan and West Virginia, seeing the rest of the nation figure out the advantages of a dual-threat quarterback has changed the way he’s had to look at his own system.

“It was a whole lot more fun 10 or 15 years ago when there weren’t a lot of people running spread, no-huddle and using mobile quarterbacks,” Rodriguez said. “Now, you see it quite a bit, so you’re seeing more creative defenses and people planning for it.”

But with more innovative defenses and more video of dual-threat, read-option quarterbacks to study, logic tells us that teams should adapt and evolve to stop them, shouldn’t they?

But they haven’t – not yet, at least. Even NFL offenses are beginning to use the read option on a regular basis, as quarterbacks such as Robert Griffin III, Colin Kaepernick, and Russell Wilson – all viable running threats -- ascend as the next generation of stars.

The potential diversity in play calls with a dual-threat quarterback makes game planning for it difficult no matter the opponent, Stanford coach David Shaw said. Ironically, Shaw runs one of the few traditional pro-style offenses in the Pac-12.

“There’s so many different possibilities,” Shaw said of using a dual-threat quarterback. “Sometimes, the quarterback being a run threat can happen in the passing game when nobody’s open. He’ll take off and run. When you’re very wise in how you scheme and how you tweak your running game using your quarterback and your running backs, you can isolate defenders. You put guys in positions where they have to make a choice, and either way, they’re wrong.”

That’s the difficult challenge that lies ahead for UCLA this week in a rematch against Nebraska. Martinez ran for 112 yards in their meeting last season, although 92 of them came on that one dynamic option run. Two Saturdays ago, against Nevada, UCLA allowed quarterback Cody Fajardo – a similar yet slower runner than Martinez – to rack up 106 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.

With two weeks to ruminate on Fajardo’s running success, UCLA coach Jim Mora hasn’t minced words about how hard of a matchup Martinez poses for the Bruins’ defense.

“We didn’t do a very good job at stopping (Fajardo), especially in the first half,” Mora said. “He’s a heck of a player. And Taylor is, as we know from last year, extra dynamic as a runner. We just have to be very sound in our gap control. We have to make sure that we’re doing our jobs and not trying to do too much.”

That’s pretty much the only answer when it comes to the inexact science of stopping a spread option quarterback.

Martinez will likely make a few big plays Saturday, no matter what, Mora said. But if UCLA can limit those outbursts, it might at least contain Martinez and the burgeoning spread option offense for one afternoon.

“It’s not easy,” Mora said. “It’s hard. You see so many different concepts and schemes, and there are so many great athletes playing that position that are not just runners, but throwers. … That just makes it exponentially more difficult on a defense.”